D&D Next: Sacred Spells

So I just got the new survey from the D&D Next team about the playtest, and I'm frustrated with this one.

It asks which spells must be in the game for it to be D&D and then it lists all Wizard and Cleric spells, and you can choose which ones must be in the game.

I selected 'NONE OF THE ABOVE' for all of them and left this reason:
"No spell has to be in the game to make it D&D."

For the final comment I left this note:
"The idea that some spell or other 'has' to be in the game for it to be D&D is a ridiculous proposition that panders to players who favor nostalgia instead of design refinement."

I hate the idea that a particular spell has to be in D&D, otherwise it's not D&D anymore   This is the kind of thinking that panders to old-school players but kills progress and refinement.

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Heroes Against Darkness is guaranteed not to contain any spells that must be in D&D:
Heroes Against Darkness: Downloads.

Remaking Magic: 4 Pages of Spells Per Class

Of all of the decisions I've made during the development of Heroes Against Darkness, the page limitation on spells per class is - at first glance - amongst the most arbitrary.  However, my hope is that this limitation actually reinforces the game's goal of balancing the magi and martial classes.

Over the course of the 10 levels of full support in Heroes Against Darkness, the martial classes have about 17 powers.  These 17 powers include a few common ones, like Rally, Melee Attack, and Ranged Attack, and then unique powers for each class which two are gained each level up to Level 5, and then one per level until Level 10.  All in all, each martial class's 17 powers takes up two pages.  By way of contrast, each of the magi classes has spells from the Common Spells list (which is itself three pages) and from the class's unique list which I deliberately limited to four pages.  The spells generally take up a little more space on the page than the martial powers, so the four unique pages of spells for each magi class gives them about 35 spells, which is twice as many spell powers as the martial characters have martial powers.

I previously wrote about the number of pages that some other fantasy RPGs have dedicated to their spell lists:

RPG Round-Up: How Many Pages of Spells!?

Here's the breakdown, for your convenience:

D&D Systems

System	Pages of Spells	Player's Guide Pages	Percentage	Notes
Basic D&D	4	64	6%	Combined Player's and DM's Guide
Expert D&D	8	64	13%	Combined Player's and DM's Guide
AD&D	60	128	47%
AD&D 2nd Edition	118	256	46%
D&D 3rd Edition	115	286	40%
D&D 4th Edition	39	316	12%	Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard

Non-D&D Systems

System	Pages of Spells	Player's Guide Pages	Percentage	Notes
Castles & Crusades	53	128	41%
Dragon Warriors	35	106	33%
Dragon Age	4	64	6%	Level 1-5 only
Dungeon Crawl Classic	44	147	30%
Heroes Against Darkness	23	102	23%
Pathfinder	150	396	38%
Savage Worlds (Explorer's Edition)	10	159	6%
Savage Worlds: Fantasy Companion	21	158	13%	Includes spells in the Explorer's Edition
Savage Worlds (Deluxe Edition)	11	159	7%
Swords & Wizardry	24	70	34%
Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing (2nd Edition)	23	189	12%

Maybe it's unfounded, but my feeling is that games that dedicate a disproportionately large number of their pages to spell lists are more likely to focus more on magi classes at the expense of other classes.  More pages of spells gives magi more options and tempts the games' designers to create more and more specialist spells, which are themselves likely to stomp on the specialties of other classes.  So each extra page of spells for the magi increases the scope of that class and when that is not matched by a corresponding increase in the capabilities of the martial classes, then the relative power and utility of that magi class increases.

Obviously, magi do offer a level of complexity in play then martial characters, and the magic system in Heroes Against Darkness still offers that complexity (and more through the flexible anima system).  Hopefully the game finds a balance between the complexity of the magi classes with the utility of the martial classes.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Blood Anima

One of the deliberate features of the magic system in Heroes Against Darkness is the strict limits on the amount of anima that is available to magi. Level 1 magi have about 9 anima and by Level 10 they have about 15 anima.  This is combined with the rules that limit the amount of anima that magi can spend in a single turn: Level + 1 anima.

Rule:  Maximum anima points is 5 + Wisdom bonus. Rule:  Magi spend anima points to cast spells. Rule:  All spells have an anima points cost. Rule:  Variable anima cost spells must have at least 1 anima spent on the variable X component. Rule:  Magi cannot spend more than Level + 1 anima points in a single turn. Rule:  Magi can end the ongoing effects of their own spells as a move action.

The combination of these two rules means that magi have a virtual abundance of anima at lower levels, but at higher levels they have the potential (and risk) to 'spend' their anima very quickly, or to eek out lesser amounts over more rounds.

But there's always another option.  Once magi are out of anima they can choose to use blood anima to pay for their spells:

Rule:  Magi can overspend anima at the cost of 4 health points per anima point. Rule:  Magi cannot overspend anima on healing spells.

Each blood anima costs 4 HP, so magi will generally be able to afford an extra blood anima each level they gain, in addition to the four or five that they have at Level 1.  So by Level 10, a brave magi has almost 30 anima at their disposal, rather than the nominal value of 15, which is their actual anima.

A curious person would ask, simply:

What is the point of blood anima?  Why not just double the amount available anima (or ramp up to the higher amount) and get rid of the blood anima?

Why indeed...

In combat warriors and their ilk 'spend' their HP to defeat enemies.  Blood anima introduces a risk/reward mechanic for magi classes.  The player of a magi character can choose to operate within the limitations of their normal anima or they can choose to use their blood anima to increase their round-to-round power at the risk of their character's safety.  The also combines with the Rally power, making that power all the more effective when used by a character whose anima and health are depleted, compared to a magi who has only used his (or her) anima and is otherwise on full HP.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Avoid All Absolutes

Yet another of my self-imposed 'rules' for Heroes Against Darkness is to avoid the sorts of absolute effects of earlier (and future!) versions of D&D.  The history of D&D is littered with absolute effects, here are a few of the more egregious that come to mind:

•  Immunities (such as the Dwarven immunity to poison that has reappeared in the D&D Next playtest)
•  Weapon Requirements (creatures that are only vulnerable to +1 or better weapons?!?)
•  Massive Damage (creatures taking more than 50 HP damage in a single attack must save or die)
•  Sleep Immunity (Elves are immune to sleep effects)
•  Attacking Low-Level Enemies (Fighters can make multiple attacks against enemies of 1 HD)

Each of these examples has an absolute effect and has no regard for the magnitude or potency of the effect, nor the relative strength or weakness of the target and the attacker.  But these are mechanical examples, and we're here to discuss magic, so how about some examples of D&D spells that have absolute effects:

•  Magic Missile (always hits, even targets that have cover or high magic defense)
•  Sleep (affects 4 HD of creatures, or creatures with less than 10 HP each in the D&D Next playtest)
•  Knock (opens any old lock, no waiting)
•  Power Word Kill (target with up to 100 HP must make save or die)

In Heroes Against Darkness I've tried to kill the sacred cows, to remove the anomalies and exceptions and layers that are gumming up the works of D&D, and to get rid of the evidence of the biases and idiosyncrasies of the designers behind the systems.

•  Why does Magic Missile automatically hit?  Because someone decided to make an exception.
•  Why does Knock open any lock?  Because someone didn't have a rogue/thief with the party that day?
•  Why can't clerics use edged weapons?  Because someone misunderstands or misrepresents a piece of history.
•  Why can magic-users only use daggers or staffs?  Because someone likes it like that.
•  Why does sleep affect 4 HD of creatures and not 5 HD?
•  Why do fighters only get attacks against 1 HD creatures  What about 2 HD creatures?  Why are they so different?

Heroes Against Darkness avoids these sorts of absolutes by using inclusive design, rather than specific design (such as for equipment proficiencies), by using Defenses and Attacks to determine whether an attack hits or not, and by applying costs to spell components to ensure that the overall cost of a spell is proportional to its actual power.  The one area where I am most likely to have made arbitrary decisions in Heroes Against Darkness is in the assignment of martial powers to each level.  It's here where I've had to make judgements of the relative utility and required skill level for each of the powers, and it's here where I'm most likely to have erred.  So if you find evidence of my idiosyncrasies and biases, let me know so I can take them out the back and put them on the spit with the rest of the sacred cows!

For further reading, check out these articles by Sean Reynolds:

Fewer Absolute Effects (Variant Rule) - Part 1
Fewer Absolute Effects (Variant Rule) - Part 2

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Narrative Control

Much to the consternation of some of my more seasoned D&D players, Heroes Against Darkness doesn't have some of the staples of magic that feature in D&D.  When looking for solutions to some problems their characters faced, they'd ask about spells that they'd used in D&D to solve similar situations.

I made a conscious decision in the design of Heroes Against Darkness that the spells would not afford players the sorts of broken tricks and combos that have become a tiresome cliche in D&D.

Here are a few of the main offenders:

•  Teleport
•  Scrying
•  Discern Location
•  Locate Object

The most overused combo is Scry-Buff-Teleport, where characters scry their target (such as with a spell or a crystal ball), and then, having established the target's location, they buff their characters and finally Teleport to the target's location and unload the rest of their spells and attacks while buffed.  Furthermore, the existence of spells like Discern Location, Locate Object, Locate Creature, Scrying, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience means that the simple task of presenting players with a normal locate, rescue, acquisition, recovery, thieving or vengeance quest becomes an exercise in contingencies and failsafes.  As a DM, I've got better things to do than spill thousands of pints of gorgon's blood to prevent this kind of shenanigans!

Teleport (and Teleport Without Fail) is so abused that various editions and expansions have added more spells to counter it:

•  Static Veil (gives bonus to save against scrying attempts)
•  Foil Tracer (Teleport spells cannot be traced)
•  Scry Retaliation (Inflicts damage upon scryer)
•  Teleport Block (No teleports are allowed in or out of area)
•  Teleport Redirect (Switch destination of teleport)
•  Teleport Tracer (Detect destination of teleport)
•  Pretur Ar Nuade (Teleport intruders to specific destination)
•  One Step Beyond (Make target immune to divination)
•  Anticipate Teleport (Alerts caster to a teleport)
•  Greater Anticipate Teleport (Alerts caster and delays teleport)
•  Screen (Protects from scrying and divination)

Never have so many spells been created to mitigate the effects of one bad spell.

To me, spells and combos like this are the equivalent of introducing a weapon at higher levels that totally bypasses all armor.  Once something like this has been introduced, the only option is to add a bunch of magic or magical armor that negates the ability of the weapon, returning the status-quo.  Obviously this is a totally pointless exercise, and one that breaks the game either temporarily or permanently.

D&D's Teleport could be easily 'fixed', perhaps by only allowing teleport into a properly prepared area, rather than just any area.  In Heroes Against Darkness, I'd balance a similar teleport spell by increasing the anima cost (so that you can teleport, but you'll be low on anima once you've reached your destination), increasing the casting duration, adding a temporary Wisdom cost, or maybe applying a condition (e.g. stunned or dazed) to all teleportees for a while after they arrive.

At the end of the day, the idea of narrative control isn't an attempt to railroad the players.  It's more of a case of ensuring that players use more than just one method for solving all problems that I present them with.  If their default solution for almost any problem is to cast Locate Object (or some variation), and then GM has to plan for this and make some plan against it or some reason for it to not work, then there's something wrong.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

D&D Next: Playtest Impressions

The other day I posted my early thoughts and opinions of the playtest rules for D&D Next and tonight we finally got a chance to play the rules.

First some background.  

Those of you who are close followers of my adventures will know that a just a year ago I GMed a Basic D&D campaign starting with the Keep on the Borderlands.  In that campaign, the players' characters were hired to rescue the son of a noble who'd been captured by a group of monsters from the Caves of Chaos.  The players had reached the caves overland, passing the tower of one of their mentors, and then through the forest.  At the ravine of the Caves of Chaos, they explored the kobold lair (the first cave on the right), then the goblins' cave on the left, which I think took them through to the next set of caves where I had the noble's son held captive.  They rescued to boy and returned to the keep, then struck out for civilization rather than returning to the caves.  I mention this because our recent familiarity with some of the cave systems is a factor in how we approached the playtest.

In the year between playing Basic D&D and this D&D Next playtest, we've had a long campaign using my Heroes Against Darkness system.  We wrapped up that campaign just a couple of weeks ago to give D&D Next a go for a while.

So tonight five of us we met for our Monday night game, I played the cleric of Moradin, we had the cleric of Pelor, the wizard, and the fighter.  For this adventure we'd been sent to the Caves of Chaos to rescue a young dwarf (from my cleric's tribe) who'd been captured by orcs.  With this set up, we found ourselves standing at the yawning entranceway of the infamous Caves of Chaos.

At this point I took a timeout and we agreed that because we'd recently played the caves, we wouldn't go into the caves that we were familiar with (the goblin cave on the left and the kobold lair on the right).  This was also good because I've read about a hundred write-ups of people fighting the damned kobolds and rats (and killing 1/round), and frankly I'm sick of hearing about those little bastards.

We made our way down into the floor of the ravine, searching for tracks that would indicate which of the caves was the lair of the orcs that we were looking for.  Unfortunately, we rolled pretty poorly (and one of the players forgot to add his Nature Lore) for the tracking, and we weren't able to discern anything informative from the multitide of footprints over the ravine floor.  Without any clear direction, we picked the second cave entrance along the left side of the ravine as our first one to explore.  

As we neared the cave we saw that this one had an actual door, as opposed to the others that were simply open cave mouths.  We thought that this would make the cave more secure, so we scrambled up the shale slope (Dex check DC 11) and approached the door.  The door was heavy and wooden, reinforced with solid metal plates.  A thorough investigation (Wis check) revealed that one of these metal plates swung open to reveal a latch for the door.  After some discussion about whether the latch was trapped, we opened the door to reveal a corridor that plunged into darkness.

Now three of our four characters have low-light vision (the two dwarves and the elf), but the human would have been blind in the dark of the cave, so we elected to have the wizard cast a couple of light catrips, one on his quarterstaff (which we only later realized that he doesn't have in his inventory) and the other on the fighter's shield.  The light revealed that the corridor ran about 30 feet to a four-way intersection.  Straight ahead it continued in stairs leading up.  The corridor to the right immediately turned again backwards towards the entrance.  And the corridor to the left soon turned right.  We headed right to investigate the corridor that headed back towards the entrance, and as we rounded the corner it immediately turned again forming a dogleg.  As we continued around the last turn of the dogleg, we saw that the corridor opened into a room some distance ahead.  Unfortunately, the inhabitants of the room noticed us and three figures sprang from their room towards us.  I immediately cast Crusader's Strike (1d6 extra damage on a hit for 1 hour).  We quickly recognised them as hobgoblins, and realizing that this was not the orcs' cave, we turned and Hustled our way out of the caves.  

When we reached the entrance we scrambled up the slope around to the precarious area above the cave mouth.  We waited there for the hobgoblins to emerge and hoped that they wouldn't notice us.  Six hobgoblins emerged from the cave moments later.  Three immediately ran down the path towards the ravine floor (we bypassed this on the way up).  The other three stayed at the entrance, with us perched just above them, and looked around.  It didn't take them long to look in our direction, so our wizard opened up with a Burning Hands (with advantage for surprise) at the three immediately beneath us, hitting two with its full effect and partially catching the other.  The wizard had let go of his handhold to cast his spell and almost tumbled over the edge and down to their ledge.  Having taken them by surprise, the fighter shot one with his crossbow, killing it, and the other cleric used his searing light to kill another.  Luckly for us, the hobgoblins had emerged with crossbows, and the four remaining beasts proceeded to pepper us with shots, hitting a couple of us, including my cleric for 5 HP.  For the next turn, I could do nothing (I didn't have a ranged weapon or spell I wanted to use), the fighter was busy reloading his crossbow (taking a full turn so that he didn't have to attack with disadvantage), so the wizard and the cleric of Pelor used their Magic Missile and Searing Light to kill the last of the hobgoblins that had been damaged in the first fiery attack.  The remaining three hobgoblins had thrown down their crossbows and run back towards the cave entrance below us, so the fighter tried to shoot his crossbow but lost his footing and slid down the slope into the middle of the monsters, who promptly wailed on his ass and did some damage.  I slid down after him and positioned myself next to him to use my character's Defender theme to protect him (While you are using a shield, when a creature withing 5' of you is attacked, as a reaction you can give the attacker disadvantage on the attack).  The next round we managed to cut down two of the hobgoblins, and the third chose to flee back into the cave.  I pursued him, but soon remembered that I didn't actually have a ranged attack, so I immediately retreated back out of the cave.

We regrouped and gathered up the six heavy crossbows (50 GP each, but three of them slightly charred!), giving one to the fighter and I took his light crossbow.  We also used the opportunity to find some shelter to rest and use the other cleric's healer's kit to recover a bit (I got a 2 for my hit dice roll, boo).

The next two caves looked very different.  High up on the left slope was a small, natural-looking cave.  Further along the left slope at our current level was a large, imposing looking entrance.  We chose the small natural cave and scrambled up the slope to investigate.  We entered the cave in normal order (fighter, cleric of Moradin, wizard, cleric of Pelor).  As we shuffled along the tight cave, the cleric of Pelor identified the footprints and smells as animal-like, which we various interpreted as a bear or wolves.  While we discussed this, an arrow flew past us from deeper in the cave.  Another arrow followed in the time it took us to realize that this cave was the den of a pack of gnolls, so we quickly retreated and fled down the slope (luckily without anything in pursuit).

We decided to head for the large cave entrance, and on approaching it my dwarf cleric discerned that the entrance was carved and decorated by humans.  Sensing something interesting, we entered this large cave.  This cave had spluttering torches to provide illumination, so we switched off our light spells.  The entrance passage was carved and worked, unlike the earlier caves, and soon joined up with a 20' wide corridor that stretched off to the left and right.  We cautiously made our way to the left along the wide coridoor, trying to keep to the shadowed areas between the weak torches.  We came to an Y intersection, and took to fork to the left.  Rounding a rubble-filled corner, we soon heard the sound of moaning, so we sent our most dexterous character ahead to investigate, and he returned with word of a large throne room, with a dozen skeletons standing guard.  Relishing the opportunity to smite some undead, we decided to strike the inert skeletons, then fall back into the corridor so that we could attempt to use Turn Undead as many of them as possible.  The plan worked perfectly, with the four of us crushing one skeleton with our first blow and damaging two others before retreating to the corridor.  The skeletons followed and walked straight into the my Turn Undead, which held all of them but three.  What followed was a slaughter as other characters ganged up on the skeletons one at a time (while I kept them turned), first attacking with advantage while they were 'turned' and following up with spells if the melee attacks weren't successful (the wizard attacked last using Shocking Grasp to gain advantage from their metal armor).

After the last of the skeletons was reduced to shards and dust, we investigated the throne.  We detected nothing magical, and unsuccessfully searched it for secret compartments, so had to settle for just prising out the four garnets that were inlaid in it.

We returned to the Y intersection and followed the other path.  We heard the noise again, and this time we identified it as moaning.  After a few more steps, we found a large empty room filled with zombies.  This time the other cleric managed to 'turn' seven of the zombies, leaving only a few still mobile.  As with their skeletal cousins, we made short (but boring) work of the zombies.

We backtracked to the main 20' wide corridor and followed it past the entrance tunnel and about another 100' feet on, where it turned to the left and then headed up a slope.  The corner had two doors, one straight ahead and another in the right wall.  We heard voices and stopped to listen, eventually identifying three humans speaking common in the room behind the door straight ahead.  We did a quick stocktake and on finding that were were all in pretty good condition (I was on 14 HP, having only take 5 HP from the hobgoblins and recovered 2 HP from the rest), we decided to open the door and storm the room to surprise the humans.

The fighter approached the door and threw it open, but found that the humans (cultists in red and black robes) were sitting at a table about 20' away down a connecting corridor.  He charged down the corridor and attacked, but failed miserably (rolled a 1 and without any advantage).  I followed and attacked the closest of the humans, missing, and then stepped next to the fighter to give him the benefit of my Guardian power.  The wizard and other cleric followed, and attacked too, with some success.  The enemies then attacked, striking the wizard a strong blow for 8 HP, and sending him running back down the corridor in fear of his life.  Another human who'd been lying on one of the beds in the room joined the fight, but the wizard made short work of them with his Shocking Grasp, which gains advantage against enemies in metal armor (as it also had with the skeletons earlier).  

With the four cultists dead, we stripped their robes and set their bodies in their beds, then paused to decide what to do.  Which is where the session ended.

Quick thoughts:

•  Advantage got a large look in, but we were never attacked by baddies with advantage.  We also never had disadvantage.  We found a couple of ways to gain advantage, such as when we surprised the hobgoblins with the Burning Hands
•  I used 1 spell Crusader's Strike, and then forgot that I had it on!
•  The fights were quick, but not particularly interesting (especially the ones where we shut down the undead)
•  We managed 5 encounters in a 3-hour session
•  I like saving throws using your ability scores, because they really streamline all the different numbers
•  I'm intrigued by the flattened maths, but worry that it's always going to feel like 1st level
•  In the current implementation, the clerics and wizards seem to get a lot more escalation at higher levels than the fighter
•  We avoided the rats and the kobolds, so we didn't have any of the encounters with 15+ enemies each with 2 HP
•  The extra starting HP makes the game much more forgiving that Basic D&D (for example, that 8 HP hit from the cultist would have killed a Basic magic-user dead dead).
•  The only modularity apparent in the system (removing Backgrounds and Themes) makes your character suck more, (as I feared)

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You could be playing Heroes Against Darkness instead: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

D&D Next: Early Thoughts and Opinions...

I've been looking forward to the D&D Next open playtest for quite a while.  I previously blogged about some of the expectations that I had of this new edition and ways to approach making a modular edition of D&D:

•  Mechanics of Attack Bonus Progression
•  D&D 5th Edition DDXP Play Report
•  Making D&D 5th Edition Modular - Part I

Now that the open playtest is here, let's take a look at what the edition actually looks like right now.

+1 Per Level Progression

Well, the designers at WotC have been true to their promise and appear to have flattened the progression curve.  The level steps for Level 2 and Level 3 don't appear to include any increases to characters' attacks, although the fighter does get +1 to damage at Level 3.

My current assumption is that characters will gain some kind of ability score increase(s) at Level 4.  If 4th Edition is a guide, then this increase could be +1 to two different abilities.  All-in-all, this makes for a very flat progression, where characters are only gaining +1 to attacks every 8 levels!

I have nothing against flattened progression, but I do wonder whether players will missing out on some psychological reinforcement that comes from seeing their attacks growing more powerful.  The other issue with the lack of any meaningful progression is that the game then has no way of simulating the skill differential between higher and lower level characters.  The second consequence of this change is that now magic weapons are far more valuable than they have been in any other edition of D&D, which I don't think s their intention (or maybe it is their intention).

Personally, I think if they're getting rid of the ½ level bonus (as used in 4th Edition), then they should offer ability score increases for more often, such as every second level.

HP and Healing

The pre-gen characters in the playtest start with their Constitution + Class HP (6 for fighters, 4 for clerics, 3 for rogues, 2 for wizards).  As they level up, characters only gain Class HP, no Constitution bonus.

Characters also have a number of Hit Dice (d12 for fighters, d8 for clerics, d6 for rogues, d4 for wizards) equal to their level, which can be 'spent' during a Short Rest to regain HP (although in the rules they say this requires a healing kit, which has only 10 uses).  This means that characters can regain about one-third of their total HP during an adventure day without resorting to magic.  This is interesting in that it offers far more mundane healing than any other edition except for 4th Edition.

At a Long Rest characters regain all of their HP and all of their Hit Dice - very 4th Edition.

Vancian Magic

Vancian magic is back for the Wizard pre-gen (yeech).  And making an unwelcome return with this is the absolutely terrible situation where a spell's level is different from the character's level.  Seriously, would it have killed them to spread the spells out so that spell level is equal to character level?

Modularity

There's no sense of the modularity in the playtest documents except that the characters display different sorts of ability types, including Vancian casting and at-will powers.  Again we can only assume that later releases will develop some modular elements.

Proficiencies and Equipment

D&D Next divides weapons and armor into nice groupings (Basic, Finesse, Martial, Heavy weapons), but they then go and ruin the simplicity by using specific language for the weapon proficiencies of wizards (daggers, slings, and quarterstaffs only) but all of the other classes use weapons based on the categories.  Weird.

Attack Bonuses

Just a few notes here.

It looks like fighters and wizards score (somehow) a total of +3 to their attacks, fighters get this for melee and ranged attacks and wizards get this for the magic attacks.  For the melee and ranged attacks, +2 of this seems to come from the character's proficiency but +1 of it is a 'mystery' bonus that I can't account for.

It also looks like monsters have a +2 attack bonus, probably from some underlying proficiency bonus.

Monsters

Monsters have no level (listed), but they do get lots of HP.  Even the toughest monster (the gnoll pack lord) has only 66 HP and +6 to attack (+4 from his 18 Str and +2 proficiency).  To be fair, that gnoll has a few special actions (no, they're not 'powers', really) that make it stronger than the 66 HP would suggest.

Action Economy

So they've gutted the action economy from 4th edition, and have an ad hoc series of actions.  First, characters can perform one action each turn, they can also move during their turn (before, after or split around their action), there are also a series of 'incidental' actions that are 'free'.

The problem with this ad hoc codification is that it introduces silly situations like the Healing Word spell, which when cast allows the caster to make a melee or ranged attack or to cast another 'minor' spell.  How much ink is going to be spent so that they don't have to codify certain spells or incidental actions as Move Actions or Minor Actions?

Save of Die

Maybe it's a mistake, but there's a save or die effect on the Medusa, where you have to avert your eyes to avoid her Petrifying Gaze.  If you avert, you are disadvantaged against her (always roll two dice and take the lowest).  If you're surprised or don't avert your gaze, you just save vs petrification (Constitution vs. DC 12) or permanently turn to stone.

Advantages/Disadvantages

After all of that D&D Next does something that I consider wholly unnecessary: it introduces an Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic to the game.  Sometimes the game will specify that you have advantage or disadvantage, such as when attacking a paralyzed character or when your character is blinded.  When you have advantage, you roll two d20s and take the higher result. When you have disadvantage then you roll two d20s and take the lower score.  It does make me wonder whether they'll change the name of the system to dd20 now?

My problem with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic is that D&D already has a bunch of mechanics for bonuses and penalties to attacks and ability tests, so I don't understand why the game needs another way of representing these adjustments, especially a mechanic that only has one magnitude.  Also, don't think that this entirely replaces bonuses and penalties.  Advantages and disadvantages work alongside bonuses and penalties, so if you're prone you take -2 to attacks, but if you're blinded then you have disadvantage on your attacks (but attackers don't seem to get advantage against you, which is weird).

Summing Up

So, all in all I'm interested in this flattening of the progression curve, but the rest of it isn't really grabbing me.  It looks like they're really trying to target the OSR crowd, but the cost of accommodating those players is pretty high for the rest of us.

We're playing a session of this on Monday, so it'll be interesting to see what the other guys think!

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You could be playing Heroes Against Darkness instead: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Enhance, Don't Replace

First, a quick confession.

I'm generally such an isolated throwback that I hadn't even heard of 'niche protection' until just a few weeks ago.  In spite of not having heard the damned term, the idea that each class in a RPG should have its own thing was apparent during the development of Heroes Against Darkness.

One aspect of this division of capabilities and specialties is the separation of the magic into the five main magi classes:
•  Warlocks who specialize in physical manifestations and offensive spells
•  Healers with their specialization in physiological magic that heals, enhances or weakens
•  Canonates who enforce the will of their divine god to buff allies, bless areas and attack enemies
•  Necromancers who can raise and control undead, drain health and anima from enemies
•  Mystics who are masters of control and influence, to help and hinder

During playtesting of Heroes Against Darkness, one of the players would constantly ask for utility spells, like in D&D.  I resisted his requests because the utility spells that he was asking for are the very spells that break the niches, they are the spells that allow wizards/sorcerers/clerics to become the Swiss Army knife classes who can do anything, anytime.  The main culprits in D&D are the spells that directly replace the class features of other classes, such as Knock, Invisibility, and the like.

Knock has the unfortunate privilege of making rogues/thieves just about useless.  Once you've got Knock, there's no locked door or chest that can't be opened by a night's rest and a quick spell.  If that wasn't bad enough, a sneaky rogue can be replaced with Invisibility as well.

In Heroes Against Darkness these sorts of spells don't have absolute effects, rather they offer enhancements to the target's ability tests, making these spells most effective when cast on a character that is already good at the activity, rather than allowing the spell to be cast on any character.  Even spells like Charm and Divine respectively enhance the character's Charisma and Perception, rather than having absolute effects.  The final advantage of the enhancement approach means that the spells effects are still relative to the state or difficulty of the target, so a Charisma or Perception enhancement takes into account the underlying difficulty of the activity that is being undertaken.

So, if you're after spells that allow magi to replicate the features of other classes, then these are not the rules you're looking for.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Scaling Spells

In previous posts in this series I've listed a few examples of spells with X costs in Heroes Against Darkness, but costed scaling isn't just limited to damage and bonuses or penalties, it also encompasses other areas like healing, manifestation, and animation.

Let's look at some examples that demonstrate how scaling works for healing.  Healing Flash has no scaling:

Healing Flash (1 Anima)

Casting Time	Move action
Spell Effect	Heal Magic bonus HP.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs. MD
Range	Touch or self

Healing Touch has simple scaling, with each anima worth one dice of healing:

Healing Touch (X Anima)

Cost	1 anima per dice of healing.
Spell Effect	Heal Xd6 + Magic bonus HP.
Target	Single target
Range	Touch or self

Finally, Healing Burst has heals all allies close to the caster, but the cost of the healing is 2 anima per dice of healing:

Healing Burst
(3 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	3 anima + 2 anima per dice of healing.
Spell Effect	Heal Xd6 + Magic bonus HP.
Target	All allies in effect area
Attack	Magic vs. MD
Range	Radius 5' per ½ Level from you

Looking at spells that cause physical manifestations, these use additional X costs in different ways.  For example, Wall of Ice requires 1 anima for each 2 pillars in the wall:

Wall of Ice
(1 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	1 anima + 1 anima per 2 pillars of ice.
Spell Effect	You create a contiguous wall of ice made up of individual pillars (5' x 5', 10' tall). Two pillars are created for each X anima spent. Corporeal creatures cannot move through the pillars or diagonally between them. No pillar can be created in an occupied position. Each pillar has 10 HP + 10 HP per ½ Level.
Duration	1 rnd + 1 rnd per level
Range	10' + 10' per level

Whereas Fire Spirit uses the scaling cost to determine how powerful the summoned spirit is:

Fire Spirit
(6 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	6 anima + 1 anima per dice of damage, +5 HP and +1 to Defenses
Spell Effect	Conjures a fire spirit that engages in melee combat.
Effect Details	Fire spirit appears adjacent to you and occupies 5' x 5'. You can use your move action to control the fire spirit's actions (major and move). The fire spirit will continue to attack its target without intervention. The fire spirit's Movement Speed is your Magic bonus. Fire spirit cannot move out of spell range. Fire spirit melee attacks target with your Magic bonus vs. target's AD. Fire spirit deals Xd6 + your Magic bonus damage on hit. Fire spirit has 10 HP + 5 HP per X, Defenses of 15 + X.
Duration	1 rnd + 1 rnd per level
Range	10' + 10' per level

By way of comparison, let's take a look at the Heroes Against Darkness version of Fireball (Level 5 warlock) and the D&D version (Level 3 spell, usable by a 5th level wizard or sorcerer) of same:

Fireball
(5 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	5 anima + 1 anima per dice of damage.
Target(s)	All targets in effect area
Attack	Magic vs. ED
Damage	Xd8 + Magic bonus
Range	10' + 10' per level
Effect Area	Radius 5' + 5' per ½ Level
Miss Effect	Magic bonus damage

D&D Fireball

Target(s)	All targets in effect area
Saving Throw	Reflex save for half damage
Damage	1d6 per level (max 10d6)
Range	400' + 40' per level
Effect Area	20' radius

So there are some swings and roundabouts here, the Heroes Against Darkness version slowly scales in radius with the caster's ½ Level bonus, whereas the D&D Fireball has a much longer range.  The biggest difference is that the D&D version scales damage for free, and even when it misses it deals half damage.  This means that every time a D&D caster gains a level, this spell becomes relatively cheaper and also more powerful!

When a D&D caster first gets Fireball, it deals 5d6 damage, whereas when the Heroes warlock gets the spell they can only spend 6 anima to deal 1d8 damage to all targets in a 15' radius.  For a Level 6 warlock, it deals an average of 13.5 + Magic bonus damage on a hit and 9 damage on a miss.  If you hit 5 targets with Fireball, then it'll deal about 110 damage for your 6 anima, which is a reasonable return.  At Level 10, the warlock can put 11 anima into the spell, giving it 6d8 damage + Magic bonus (28 + 14) with a radius of 30'.  Now, that sounds like a ton of damage (and it is), but keep in mind that at this level the warlock probably has only 18 anima before they have to use their blood anima (or Rally).

And in case you're wondering, the base cost of Fireball comes from these components; it attacks ED (+1 anima), 10'+10' range (+1 anima), radius 5'+5' (+2 anima), Magic bonus miss damage (+1 anima).

The D&D Fireball at 5th level deals on average 17.5 damage on a hit and 8 on a miss.  At 10th level, the same spell deals an average of 35 damage on a hit, and 17 damage on a miss.  This is slightly less damage than a fully-powered Heroes Against Darkness Fireball, but by level 10 a D&D wizard or sorcerer will be able to cast three such fireballs, plus several level 4 spells and a level 5 spell.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: No Redundant Spells

In this entry in the Remaking Magic series, we take a look at the steps taken to ensure that no spell gets left behind.

The side-effect of changing most spells to have scaling X is that they never become redundant as the character gains levels.  In the previous examples, Burning Touch and Burning Ray, the spells are just as useful at Level 10 as they are at Level 1.  As the caster's level increases, they can put more anima into the X component of the spell, and make them a lot more powerful based on the circumstances they find themselves in.

Wherever possible the spells in Heroes Against Darkness avoid fixed bonuses or penalties and instead offer the player the choice of how much anima they want to expend on each spell.  Now, nothing in the world is perfect, so here are some spells that do have fixed effects or scale without costs.

First, Befriend offers a slightly scaling bonus to Charisma tests:

Befriend (1 Anima)

Spell Effect	Add Magic bonus to Charisma ability tests (Cha).
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs. MD
Duration	1 hr + 1 hr per level
Range	5'

Second, Tremble is another example. This is one of a number of spell variants that have large penalties but only over a short single-turn duration.

Tremble (2 Anima)

Spell Effect	Decrease target's Ranged bonus by your Magic bonus.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs. MD
Duration	End of target's next turn
Range	10' + 10' per level

Interestingly, Tremble has a sister spell called Quake, which does scale but doesn't actually make it redundant:

Quake (X Anima)

Cost	1 anima for each -1.
Spell Effect	Decrease target's Ranged bonus by X.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs. MD
Duration	1 rnd + 1 rnd per level
Range	10' + 10' per level

In the case of Tremble and Quake, Tremble offers a large penalty in the short term, while Quake offers directly-costed penalties over a longer duration.

The use of X costs for a large number of the spells in Heroes Against Darkness means that players have genuine choices in how they use their anima and which spells they use in the process.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic: Balance

Heroes Against Darkness employs a number of techniques to keep magi relatively balanced against the martial classes.

First, the combination of the total pool of anima that magi have (5 + Magic Bonus) plus the speed with which they can spend their anima (Level + 1 anima per turn) limits the speed with which they can deal damage and their total potential amount of spell damage.

Rule:  Maximum anima points is 5 + Wisdom bonus. Rule:  Magi spend anima points to cast spells. Rule:  All spells have an anima points cost. Rule:  Variable anima cost spells must have at least 1 anima spent on the variable X component. Rule:  Magi cannot spend more than Level + 1 anima points in a single turn.

Second, not all magi are focused on dealing direct damage.  The warlock, which is the primary damage-dealing magi class, can deal 1d8 damage per anima.  Necromancers also deal 1d8 damage per anima, but they have less flexibility in the range of damage dealing spells.  Canonates' divine magic only deals 1d6 damage per anima against normal enemies, but this increases to 1d10 against undead.  Furthermore, each time that a spell has some additional component (such as range, targeting non-Armor Defenses, effect area, miss damage, duration) then these components are specifically included in the cost of the spell.  Let's take a look at some examples of magi's direct damage spells.

The Burning Touch spell allows a brave warlock to deal the highest possible damage:

Burning Touch (X Anima)

Cost	1 anima per dice of damage.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs.  AD
Damage	Xd8 + Magic Bonus
Range	Touch

The added range component of Burning Ray means that the warlock has to spend 1 anima to not get whacked in the head with a sword:

Burning Ray
(1 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	1 anima + 1 anima per dice of damage.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs.  AD
Damage	Xd8 + Magic Bonus
Range	10'+10' per level

The electrical nature of Shocking Ray means that it is cast against the target's Evasion defense, rather than their Armor defense, with +1 anima for the non-Armor defense and another +1 anima for the ranged attack:

Shocking Ray
(2 Anima + X Anima)

Cost	2 anima + 1 anima per dice of damage.
Target	Single target
Attack	Magic vs.  ED
Damage	Xd8 + Magic Bonus
Range	10'+10' per level

Finally, martial characters are not limited to a single weapon damage increment, rather their weapon damage increases as they gain levels.

Melee Attack

Condition	Target in melee range.
Attack	Melee vs.  AD
Damage Level 4: Level 8: Level 12:	Weapon + Melee 2d Weapon + Melee 3d Weapon + Melee 4d Weapon + Melee

All of these factors interact in complicated ways, but the general result is that magi can deal damage faster than martial classes in the short term, but in doing so they deplete their anima and soon have to Rally or use blood anima.  Martial classes can deal a slightly lower amount of damage with each hit but over an extended duration, making them the backbone of any party in longer fights. Ultimately this means that magi can have a big impact early in a balanced encounter, but they can't win it single-handedly.

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Remaking Magic

Let's get this out of the way: I strongly dislike Vancian magic.

When I started work on Heroes Against Darkness we'd just finished playing a long 4th Edition campaign followed by a shorter Basic D&D campaign.  The switch from 4th Edition to Basic was caused by a general dissatisfaction with 4th Edition (don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater) and frustration with the final module that we played (Pyramid of Shadows).  The experience of playing some Basic reminded me of why I stopped playing that edition all those years ago:

•  Class as race
•  Spell level != character level
•  Slow non-magical healing
•  Clerics get no spells at 1st level, but elves get one?!?
•  Arbitrary lists of armor and weapons for magic-users and clerics
•  Tables (to hit), tables (saving throws), tables (thieves skills), and more tables (every damned ability score has a different one)!

Now I could whine about Basic all day, but at the time it was state of the art.  Things have moved on since then, with a lot of mechanical improvements, simplification and consolidation of separate sub-systems, and better scaling for all systems.

Sadly, one of the areas where things haven't moved on in D&D-land (at least until recently) has been the magic systems.  Until 4th Edition folded martial and spell powers into the AEDU powers system (At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility), D&D had stuck with the same system of Vancian spell-casting, on top of which they layered various fixes to address specific and general issues (spell resistance, casting feats, spontaneous casting, various dalliances with psionics, etc).

It's a relic of the past that should have been discarded from D&D shortly after it was introduced.  It doesn't work particularly well on an intellectual, mechanical, or gameplay level.  Furthermore, it leads to the unfortunate (literal and figurative) explosion of spell-caster power as they advance in levels while the other classes are stuck with a more linear increase in power.  And if you've read some of my earlier posts, you'll know that Vancian spell systems are a terrible waste of pages in game rule systems (compared to the amount of space dedicated to non-magic classes), occupying up to half of the total pages in some editions' player's guides (AD&D 2nd Edition and Pathfinder being the notable examples of this).

So when I decided to make my own system, the major area I wanted to rework was the magic system.  I began with the simple goal of implementing a magic system based on spell points (anima), and from there my goals evolved as I implemented the system and learned more and more about it in its evolution through playtesting.  Eventually my goals were:

•  Magi classes must be balanced against other classes
•  Spells shouldn't become redundant
•  Spells shouldn't scale without additional costs (Fireball)
•  Magi enhance other classes, not replace (Knock, Invisibility)
•  No magic can break the game or the GM's narrative control (Fly, Overland Travel, Teleport, Scry)
•  No spells should have absolute effects (Finger of Death, Sleep)
•  Allow casters to deplete HP to cast spells (blood anima)
•  Just four pages of spells for each magi class

This was going to be one post, but it's turned into a monster so I'll cover each of these areas in separate posts, so stay tuned!

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

+2 Is Easy

One of the goals for the classes in Heroes Against Darkness was that each of them should be easily able to gain +2 to their Attacks, whether it's a melee attack, a ranged attack, or a spell attack.  The game's combat powers are all based on class specialties, situational bonuses, or trade-offs, so each of the classes draws from these possibilities for their specific attack power that grants +2 to hit.

Heroes Against Darkness has an assumed hit chance of around 45% (hitting on a 12), based on the standard progression and monster stats, so the extra +2 on offer immediately switches this to 55% (hitting on a 10). Each of the classes gains this +2 in different ways, so let's take a tour:

Warrior

Warriors have the most straightforward method of gaining their +2. The Careful Strike power allows warriors to trade off some damage (2 damage per damage tier), for +2 to attack:

Careful Strike

Condition	Target in melee range.
Attack	Melee + 2 vs. AD
Damage Level 4: Level 8: Level 12:	Weapon + Melee – 2 2d Weapon + Melee –4 3d Weapon + Melee –6 4d Weapon + Melee –8

Heroes Against Darkness Version 1.0 Released!

Well, editing has taken several weeks longer than I anticipated but it's done now, so v1.0 of Heroes Against Darkness is released:

The major changes and updates for this revision are:

• Changed Stabilize to be a major action, not a full action
• Changed opposed movement to be a major action, not a move action
• Rewrote Introduction and Character Creation intro
• Updated character sheet
• Updated character creation instructions
• New art for races
• Added Smack It Off power for some monsters
• Added Shake It Off by default for all monsters
• Edit pass over entire document (kill me)
• New cover art, take that!
• Clarified that magic doesn’t stack on Attacks/Defenses
• Fixed Divine Strike anima cost
• Changed immobilized condition to be –2 to Defenses
• Clarified rogues’ Backstab Attack power
• Added ghouls, kobolds and lich to Beasts & Bastards
• Adjusted several necromancer spells to have X costs
• Clarified that allies are other creatures, not the character
• Added swooshy thing at the top of all pages
• Updated monster art
• Added cover art page
• Split Acknowledgements from Art Credits
• Moved Combat and Role-Playing Encounter sections

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Check out Heroes Against Darkness over at the downloads page: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Alpha Rules Updated to v0.244

I've updated the downloadable Heroes Against Darkness Alpha rules to v0.244.

This is a huge revision of the rules, and incorporates many of the significant changes I've been discussing here on the blog and over on the Game Design & Development forums at rpg.net.

Healing, Anima and Resting

The biggest single change to the game system has been a full overhaul of the Healing Powers and resting in the game.

First, the old Healing Powers (Rally, Recuperate, Rejuvenate, Regenerate) have been removed and replaced with a single Rallypower that is available to all classes at Level 1.

Previously, the Healing Powers healed fixed amounts of Health Points, didn't regain any Anima Points. They also had some fairly fiddly rules for when they could be used. The new Rally power rolls up the regeneration of Health Points and Anima Points during encounters and in short rests into one single power.

Instead of healing fixed amounts of HP, Rally now allows the character to regain half of the amount that their Health Points and Anima Points are depleted.

This change also meant that I made a slight (but significant) change to the formula for Anima Points:

• Anima Points: 5 + Magic Bonus

The final part of this package of changes was to allow the Rally power to be used at short rests, and to allow multiple short rests to be taken between encounters (but each with a longer duration than the last, starting at 15 minutes, then 1 hour, then 4 hours).

Rally

Action Time	Full action
Power Effect	Character regains ½ of the amount by which their Health and Anima Points are depleted. +4 to all Defenses until end of character‟s next turn.
Special	This power can only be used once per encounter

With this change, I've also changed to rules for Resting:

Rule: Characters can take short rests after encounters. Rule: At a short rest, characters can use their Rally power to recover Health Points and Anima Points. Rule: At a long rest, characters recover all of their Health Points and Anima Points.

And I've updated the examples of resting:

Example: Rothgar the berserker, Brythil the warrior, Charlange the warlock and have just fought and defeated a vengeful spirit, leaving Rothgar with just 9 HP (out of 31) and Brythil with 16 HP (out of 28). Charlange has emerged unscathed, but his remaining AP is just 3 (out of 10). When they all used their Rally power at a short rest, Rothgar regains 11 HP, taking him up to 20 HP. Brythil regains 6 HP, so he goes to 22 HP. Charlange regains 3 Anima, taking him to 6 AP.

Other Major Changes

Here are the other big changes:
• Changed some fonts! :-)
• Split example character sheet section into two pages for clarity
• Major edit pass over the whole book.
• Added a 7th Role-Playing Tip to the Role-Playing Encounters section.
• Updated the Combat Encounters section with more examples of powers.
• Conditions section revised, including sections on how to remove ongoing, enforced and area conditions and effects.
• Clarified the healing rules for dying or stabilized characters (returns them to 1 HP, but dazed until the end of their next turn).
• Changed magic Armor enhancements (e.g. +1) to apply to all Defenses, not just AD.
• Updated Powers: Attacks & Spells section with more examples of each of the components of powers.
• Major revision of all class powers.
• Recuperate, Rejuvenate and Regenerate have been removed and replaced with three all-new attack powers for all of the martial classes.
• Unified all ability test powers to use the same difficulty (15 + level of caster or creature that applied the spell effect or condition).
• All martial classes now have five Level 1 powers, two powers each level between Level 2 and Level 5, and one power each subsequent level up to Level 10.
• Improved the presentation of Attack and Spell powers to reduce the amount of wasted space and split lines.
• Reworked many spell powers to scale with X Anima.
• Expanded and differentiated spell lists for all magi classes.
• Added huge section for GMs on Ability Tests and difficulties for lots of tests (Perception, Break Doors, Lifting, Diplomacy, Lock Picking, Climbing, Tracking, Swimming).
• Added section on Magic Weapons & Armor with level breakdowns for appropriate pieces.
• Added section on Magic Items with level breakdowns for appropriate stuff.
• Expanded the On Magic section with lots more detail on the Anima cost of specific spell components.
• Updated the appendix tables and stuff at the back for printing for a GM screen.

Beta Soon?

With all of these changes, there are only a few things to clean up before we're Beta!

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Head over to the game rules download page to grab yourself a copy of this bad-boy: Heroes Against Darkness - Game Rules.

Heroes Against Darkness: Session Report

Some readers might be wondering how Heroes Against Darkness works in play, rather than on paper. So here's a quick recap of our Monday night session.

In the lead up to the session, the six adventurers had been captured by goblins while traveling through an ancient dwarven tunnel that linked a series of beacon towers along a range of mountains. We pick up the story with the adventurers in cells in the goblin's tower, and negotiating with the goblin shaman to rescue the goblin chief who had been captured by human bandits based out of the next beacon tower to the south.

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The goblin shaman returned to the cell-block with an ultimatum: Help the goblins or else. Luckily, the various members of the party had come to their senses, and negotiated the release of four of the party to rescue the goblin chief from the bandits who were holed up in the next beacon tower some 12 miles to the south. After some discussion, they decided that it was best to leave behind Gorlock the barbarian and Wraistlin the warlock, and to take the Boags the warrior, Stark the hospiter, Sting the hunter and Maza the warlock.

Their decision made, the shaman knocked out the four heroes, who woke up on the mountain pathway that led away from the goblin's tower down to the foot of the mountains. At this point the path widened somewhat, but through the middle of this wide section ran a deep crevasse. The goblin shaman and his minions stood on the other side of the crevasse, waiting for their captives to wake.

Once they were awake, the goblins threw the characters' equipment across to them and pointed the way to the bandit's tower, which was visible some distance to the south. The goblin shaman also threw across a small pouch of healing potions to aid the characters in their quest to rescue his chief.

The smaller party struck out down the path, then followed it into the woods at the foot of the mountain range. During their journey south, the group discussed their plan and decided to try to enlist the help of the bandits in a counter-attack against the goblins.

Some three miles from the bandit's tower, the group came upon a human lookout asleep at his post up in a tree. The party woke him and demanded that he take them to the tower. The lookout claimed that the tower was haunted (been there himself) and warned the party away. The party members insisted and ended up scaring the lookout, who fled into the forest, pursued by the hunter. The fellow proved evasive and lost the hunter to make good his escape.

Resuming their journey, the party came across another person on the side of the road, just a mile or so short of the tower. Again the second lookout warned them away from the tower, but the party convinced him that they had come from the goblin's tower and were here to see his leader. The lookout fetched the bandit leader, Jenton.

Jenton, the bandit leader, came to meet the party, with the first lookout in tow (and looking slightly worse for wear). Jenton told the party that the lookout had claimed that the party tried to kill him. The party convinced the bandit leader that the lookout was lying, and they had not attacked him. Furious, the bandit leader killed the hopeless lookout, and warned the heroes not to lie to him.

Sting the hunter immediately lied to him about what they wanted from him, prompting a final warning from the bandit leader.

Chastised, the warrior told the bandit leader of their captured allies who were held in the goblin's tower, and how they had severely weakened the goblin forces. Eventually, the bandit leader was convinced, and the party reached an agreement with him to assault the goblin's tower to wipe out the goblins and to rescue their captives.

After some discussion, together they came up with a plan for a three-pronged attack, with the bandits assaulting the tower from the northern and southern dwarven tunnels, while the remaining party members would take the goblin chief back for delivery to the goblin shaman. Ahead of the meeting time (sundown the next day), the party drugged the goblin chief to keep him out of the fight, and Enshrouded the hunter (extending the duration of the spell as well) so that he could take up a strategic position in the rocks above the rift-breached mountain pathway.

At the appointed time, the party arrived for the handover. When the goblin shaman arrived, along with two strong guards, two archers, and two weaker guards.

The party attacked. The goblin shaman acted first and knocked out the hospiter with a Restrain spell, but not before the hospiter immediately used an interrupt spell - Seize Initiative - which increased the initiative of all of the party members. Maza followed up with Wall of Ice, which he used to fashion a bridge across the rift. Boags the warrior grabbed the downed hospiter and dragged him across the ice bridge as he charged at the shaman and his guards. Up in the rocks, the hunter had been sighting the shaman using his Steady power and was ready to fire, a shot which struck the goblin a terrible hit.

The battle then began in earnest, with the goblin shaman Bane-ing the heroes to reduce their attack rolls and also calling forth a Mystic Warrior, whose attacks distracted the warrior by forcing him to attack the apparition. The Restrained hospiter managed to use his Shake It Off power to end the effects of the shaman's spell, and re-entered the fight as well as offering some limited healing to the other party members.

Maza the warlock used as much of his Anima as he could on several Chain Lightning spells, which coursed through the battlefield and electrocuted the shaman's cohorts. As the battle raged, the shaman and his archers managed to knock the hospiter unconscious with a few good arrow hits. With the hospiter down and their healing potions all gone, the party members were out of healing (having forgotten about the own Rally powers). Just as Boags himself was knocked out, Maza used the last of his blood Anima to cast another Chain Lightning which killed another two of the goblins, leaving just the shaman and three of his guards (one of the tough ones and the two archers).

Up above, the hunter sighted carefully and loosed an arrow which struck and killed the goblin shaman. With the shaman dead, the remaining guard fled towards the ice bridge (created by the Wall of Ice spell), just as the spell expired, and promptly plunged into the crevasse as the ice gave way beneath him. The two archers fled back towards the tower, but then came screaming back, pursued and quickly cut down by human bandits who'd made their way from the dwarven tunnels and had successfully overwhelmed the remaining goblins inside the tower.

As the smoke cleared, two of the adventurers lay dying on the ground (Stark the hospiter and Boags the warrior), Maza the warlock was on 4 HP (having spent a great deal of blood Anima through the course of the fight) and the hunter was unhurt!

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Total combatants:
- Stark the hospiter (Level 5)
- Boags the warrior (Level 5)
- Sting the hunter (Level 5)
- Maza the warlock (Level 5)

- Goblin Shaman (Level 7)
- 2x Goblin Guards (Level 3 each)
- 2x Goblin Minions (Level 3 each)
- 2x Goblin Archers (Level 3 each)

Total Party Level: 20
Total Enemy Level: 22

Combat Rounds: About 8?
Combat Duration: 60 minutes (this was probably a bit slow because one of the players was controlling two characters he wasn't familiar with; the hospiter and the warlock)